Join us for the launch of Tasmanian author Mark Heyward's novel, The Quality of Light, at The Battery Point Community Hall on Thursday 26th June at 5:30pm, hosted by The Hobart Bookshop. 

Part coming-of-age story, part psychological thriller, Mark has written a profound meditation on memory, masculinity, and the healing power of nature.  Mark will be joined in conversation with Bob Brown to discuss his new novel.

When Matthew thinks about his youth, he pictures it as a mad, crazy scramble for meaning. Schoolboy violence and grubby teachers. Dreams of peace, revolution, free love. It all coalesces into a confusing, toxic soup of teenage hormones.

That summer, though, was a golden time. It was just Matthew, his brother, and the wilderness: the lake, the mountains, the forest.

Fifty years later he sets out with his two sons to rediscover the remote cabin he helped build in the Tasmanian highlands. There, he is forced to reckon with a troubled past. 

Mark Heyward is a Tasmanian author, with previously published works including Crazy Little Heaven, an Indonesian Journey, Looking for Borneo and The Glass Islands, a year in Lombok. Mark also writes occasionally for journals, magazines, and national papers in Indonesia and Australia on education, culture, literature, travel, religion, and the arts.  He holds a BA, Dip.Ed., M.Ed. and PhD from the University of Tasmania.

Mark lives between his two island homes in Tasmania and Lombok. He is married with four children.